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hi I'm Peter Lamont a new business and personal law attorney I'd like to welcome you to this edition of practical law now there are times when you need to file a lawsuit and the damages that you're seeking are $15,000 or below in some cases it might be very low 150 or 200 dollars and it might not make financial sense for you to hire an attorney in those cases you're looking at filing a lawsuit in New Jersey's special Civil Division and there are forms that you can fill out to initiate the case so today we're going to take a look at filling out a summons and complaint in the special civil part of the Superior Court in New Jersey okay so we're going to take a look at now filling out the special civil part complaint and summons before we get into filling out the forms I want to make a couple points first of all when can you use these forms well you can use them for legal matters that involve property damage breach of a verbal or written contract defective merchandise that you might have purchased a landlord who refuses to give you a security deposit back if you've done work and you've not been paid for it a a whole host of things that you can sue for but there are a couple things that you cannot use this special civil part form for and they include a claim for child support and/or alimony and claims arising from a probate matter a prerogative rent or a claim for equitable relief so those are things you cannot bring in the special civil part for all else you can use this form now one more thing special civil has a cap of fifteen thousand dollars for what you can recover in the special Civil Division in other words if your case has a value greater than fifteen thousand dollars you cannot recover beyond the fifteen thousand so in other words if your case is valued at twenty thousand and you want to sue in special civil you can do so but your not going to get more than $15,000 if it's above the fifteen thousand dollar limit most people file in the law Division not in the special civil part but it's a strategy decision it's a financial decision is it worth a quick trial date is it worth a reduced fee to file in special civil even if I'm going to lose a little money that's a personal decision if you're having that issue you should probably talk to a lawyer just to get some feedback but for the most part we're going to look at cases that are $15,000 and under and we're going to use for the purposes of this instruction a scenario whereby you paid Bob at Bob's painting to do work on your house to do some painting he had you sign a written contract you did so and he took your money but he never showed up to do the job so now we're going to sue Bob okay the damages that you have or a thousand dollars that's what the contract was so you're out a thousand dollars you say to yourself I want to get my money back but I don't want to pay a lawyer because it's going to cost me too much money and I don't want to you know spend money that I shouldn't be spending when I can do it myself all right that's your choice so you're gonna figure out now what do i do what do i sue well you're going to sue in a special civil part and you're gonna use complaint form a now a complaint is the way that you tell the court what the legal issue is a summons which we're going to get to in a second here's what the summons looks like that alerts the defendant that hey you're being sued now you've got to do something so let's go back to the complaint for a second all right let's look at what we're gonna fill out here first things first you are the plaintiff you're suing Bob's painting so your name here your street address town state zip code and telephone number who are you suing well in this case it's going to be Bob if Bob's painting let's assume just for simplicity sake that Bob's painting is not an entity it's not an LL see it's just a guy Bob who says hey I'm Bob's painting so you don't need to sue his company you're just suing Bob you're gonna put his street address town city zip and then the telephone number now I'm going to mention this again in the summons section but be very careful that you enter the defendants address correctly because the court is going to look to what information you have provided as to the address where they're going to send the summons and complaint - that's called service they're gonna send via the mail a copy of your summons and complaint that will alert the defendant that he is or she is being sued in this case it's a he cuz it's Bob he's being sued and that he has 35 days to file an answer otherwise you the plaintiff will be entitled to a default judgment once that service happens your case is under way but until service happens all you've done is preserved your statute of limitations by filing the case so this is really really critical to make sure you've got the right address now up here we're going to select the county in which county are you going to sue well let's say for example that you live in Bergen County and so does Bob so you're gonna select Bergen County the docket number you don't need to do anything with because the court will fill in that document or the docket number for you now let's go down to the reason why you're suing now as you see here it says you can attach more sheets if you need to oftentimes people make the mistake of saying all right what's my cause of action I had a contract with him he didn't do it he said breach of contract so I'm just gonna type in breach of contract that's my entire case right there while it might be acceptable it's not advisable what I suggest you do is to give more of a narrative more of a description On June 1st I hired Bob to do painting in my house I signed a contract with Bob and I paid Bob $1,000 Bob never showed up to do the work my house still isn't painted here's a copy of the contract I'm looking for my money back that is important for two reasons first of all it lets the judge and the law clerk and the court in general understand why you're suing him not just simply breach of contract that doesn't tell us anything the other potential benefit that it has is that when the defendant gets served with a lawsuit Bob's going to be able to clearly understand what the issue is if bob is smart Bob will say oh shoot I get all these things and I don't really have a defense so I better settle with him or hire the plaintiff and and either give all the money back or maybe they'll accept partial money back and if bob goes out and hires a lawyer if he's a good lawyer he or she will suggest to Bob hey listen you have no defense here's the causes of action that are alleged you should give the money back so there's that that hidden benefit of making sure the defendant understands why you're suing him now you go down here to the amount that you the plaintiff are demanding well we know that Bob charged you a thousand dollars that is the amount that you're requesting plus interest don't worry about this because the court will calculate this based upon the statutory interest rate so you don't need to worry about that now they want to know the cost for suing because you're entitled to reimbursement of that what that means is that you're going to pay a certain amount to the court to file the complaint and to have the court serve the complaint and you're entitled to recoup that money how do you figure that out well the court will provide you with a worksheet looks like this it's called instructions for computing filing fee if your case is below three thousand dollars the cost to file the case is thirty two dollars now in our case we're suing Bob for a thousand so we're going to enter in here thirty two dollars we don't have any additional defendants so that's going to be a zero and then we have to pay for mail service seven dollars for each defendant we only have one so it's $7.00 now we come down to the jury trial fee the decision whether or not to have a jury trial is a legal strategic decision sometimes a case would require the sympathy of a jury you wouldn't want just a judge to look at it other times it's something that's so straightforward where you don't need a jury you don't want any sympathy you don't want anybody's personal you know feelings that you don't need to present evidence to them the judge can handle it and it's a semi complicated decision as to whether or not you are going to select a jury trial but when you're dealing with low dollar amount cases most people tend to say I don't want to spend the additional $50 so I'm going to just waive the jury trial and ultimately if you do so you're gonna have a judge deciding the issue which is fine for certain cases in this case it's a breach of contract claim and it's really straightforward because we have the signed contract we have our cancelled check so showing that we paid Bob we don't need a jury to look at this the judge can easily decide it so what's my total gonna be well my total is going to be thirty two plus seven thirty nine dollars so now I can go back to my complaint and I can enter in thirty nine dollars for the cost of suing I'm almost done with this form just a couple more things so we go down here do you need an interpreter well in this case we don't now if you did you'd click yes and indicate the language and an interpreter would be provided for you do you have a disability that requires a special accommodation in this case we're learning to say no now you look at these last two certifications by signing this document your first certifying that the matter which you're suing about is not the subject of another court case or arbitration this is a genuine new matter that you're bringing before the court you know it's not like you have an arbitration of the same thing and you're trying to get double the relief or you know it's the first time that this is being brought essentially so you're certifying that and then you're also certifying that any confidential information is being redacted what does that mean well let's assume for a second that you are going to attach a copy of the contract to your complaint and for whatever reason Bob decided that since he didn't have a home improvement contractors license number he'll put his social security number down well this rule right one colon 38-7 B says that you should not submit personal information it needs to be redacted or crossed out all right so essentially redacted means just that revise it cross it out cover it up so that you can't see it now the type of information that you would want to redact is obviously Social Security numbers bank account information confidential information that you would not obviously want disclosed needs to be redacted if you want more guidance on that you can look at the rule rule 1 : 38-7 be all right then you obviously date the document and you sign it and you type your name that's it you're done with the complaint now the complaint lets the court know what your legal issues are but now you need to let the defendant know that you're suing him or her in this case we're suing Bob so we need to prepare a summons and this is form B of the special civil part and you're going to go up here you're going to do just like you did on the complaint you're going to type your name plaintiff your address your telephone number your name again remember you are the plaintiff and then you're going to put in bob's information so Bob's painting then you're going to come up here and you're going to fill out the top part so what's your demand amount well we know it's a thousand dollars because that's what your contract was the filing fee we know from the previous page and from the worksheet is $32 plus the service fee is $7 to serve one defendant there are no attorneys fees because you're not an attorney you're handling this pro se and you put your total amount that you're seeking to recover which is one thousand thirty-nine dollars now we go down here again we select the county you and Bob are in Bergen so we're going to select Bergen this you can leave blank docket number it says right here that the court will provide it so you don't need to worry about that then you need to go down here and you need to check off whether or not it is a contract case or a tort case all right so in this case I'm going to click contract because this case arises out of breach of contract between you and Bob Bob breached the contract now a tort is negligence action or it's a product liability action it could be a civil assault or civil battery defamation you know some sort of intellectual property dispute that would be considered a tort everything else will you've got an oral or written agreement is contract now you're going to go down here and you're going to in cert Bob's information including his full address and like I told you on the complaint this part is critical because the court is going to look at the summons as the only means that they have to mail this information to Bob if you put the wrong address he's not going to get it and if he's not served your case doesn't go anywhere you may have filed the complaint but if it doesn't get served on Bob nothing happens now this section down here is not for you to worry about this is all for the court to fill in so that's it then now you've completed the summons and the complaint all right and now what do you do with it well honestly what I would recommend is that you do a cover letter to the court address to the clerk advising what you're doing I mean obviously a clerk's going to get a summons and complaint and understand it needs to be filed but it's so much better for you for your records and for the clerk if you do a cover letter that says dear Clark attached please find the summons and complaint and I'm submitting it for filing now there's one other thing that you need to include and that is your payment because you need to pay for the filing and service you need to write a check for the thirty nine dollars you write the check payable to the Treasurer state of New Jersey and you if I were you I'd write it in the memo exactly what this is for filing fee for case against Bob and you attached your check to your cover letter which can also mention the fact that the filing fee is enclosed your summons your complaint once you submit all of that to the clerk they'll take your check they'll cash it they'll process your paperwork they'll mail out the summons and complaint to the defendant and assuming that he or she receives the mail they're served I mean the only reason that somebody wouldn't be served as if you had the wrong address they had moved and you didn't know it but service is considered effectuated once the special civil court mails out the letter and you know the the recipient Bob will get a letter in the mail that says here's the summons you've been sued here's the complaint they'll be able to look at the allegations and then he'll either contact you to try to resolve it or he'll get an attorney to attempt to defend it but in any event this is all you need to do to start your case in the special civil part well I hope that you found today's video helpful and that we explain the basics of filling out a special civil summons and complaint if you have any questions about this topic or other topics please feel free to give us a call the phone number is 973 nine forty nine three seven seven zero or you can email me at info at Peter Lamont esq dot-com remember before doing anything on your own speak to an attorney see if an attorney is affordable if you believe you need to have the representation of an attorney before you handle any matter on a pro se basis thanks for joining me and I'll see you next time